Duff won best actress for her portrayal of John Lennon's mother in Sam Taylor-Wood's Nowhere Boy, beating out the Oscar and Bafta-nominated Carey Mulligan in the process, while Serkis was garlanded for his role as the late singer Ian Dury in biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll. Best screenplay went to Armando Iannucci's political satire In the Loop, and film-maker Peter Strickland picked up the gong for most promising newcomer for his work on the Berlin film festival favourite Katalin Varga, a thriller filmed in the Romanian countryside.

A pregnant Duff thanked her husband James McAvoy, who was in the audience, for allowing her to take her work "far too seriously". She said: "I'd really like to be Mrs McAvoy for a minute and say thank you for seriously having to live with a flame-haired broken-hearted banjo player for quite some time." Serkis dedicated his award to Dury, saying: "Ian wherever you are, this is for you."

Arnold told the BBC she was "delighted" to pick up best film for Fish Tank. Her Cannes festival jury winner centres on a volatile 15-year-old living on an Essex council estate whose life is thrown into turmoil when her single mother takes a new lover.

"It's wonderful for the film and all the people who worked hard on the film, but I'd happily sneak away," said the director, who won a Bafta for her 2006 debut Red Road and an Oscar for her short film Wasp in 2004. "I don't feel any different now to how I did five years ago. It doesn't matter how many awards you get, it still feels like a massive struggle and a challenge to find the truth of what you're doing."

Sacha Baron Cohen made a rare public appearance out of character to collect the Peter Sellers award for comedy from Terry Gilliam, while veteran film-maker Nicolas Roeg picked up a special award for his contribution to film from actor Jenny Agutter, star of Walkabout. The awards were held at the London Film Museum, which also sponsored an award for technical achievement. It went to Barry Ackroyd, cinematographer on Kathryn Bigelow's Oscar hopeful The Hurt Locker.